The advent of social media networking and blogging has created convenient new channels for cloud communication with friends. Generally, social media networks and blogs are user driven in that individuals provide the content and control the information exchange. For example, a Twitter or Facebook user has an individual profile page that shows their personal activity stream of content postings and the activity streams of their network of friends. One popular way of sharing information is through a status update which can be posted and shared with their entire network of friends, or sent directly to an individual friend or group.
Plug-ins for content management systems and other sharing scripts allow content publishers to embed sharing functionality into their websites. This allows users to share content with members of their social media network or readers of their blog. Typically, this is limited to the URL at which the content was found. For example, if the user has found an interesting article and would like to post the URL of the article on their social media network or blog, the user selects the respective function if the content publisher has implemented a sharing plug-in or script.
If sharing functionality is not available on a website and the user would like to share content found on the website with members of their social media network or readers of their blog, the user has to manually copy and paste the desired block of content or the URL at which the content was found, and then manually post it as an update to their social media network or blog. For example, if the user would like to share the weather forecast for an upcoming outdoor event with members of their social media network or blog, the user must first perform a manual query on the website of a weather forecast provider. If sharing functionality is not available, the user must copy and paste the actual contents of the forecast or the URL at which the forecast was found, and post it as an update to their social media network or blog. These operations are even more difficult for the users of mobile devices.
What is needed is a technique to automate the request, update, and delivery of dynamic information by processing commands embedded in social media postings.